[2] Forain is the cant word used for all merchants with their wares who sell in fairs, but it is also applied generally to all owners of travelling shows and amusements. See Chapter II., page 37.
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CHAPTER II. THE FAIR.
Fashion, which regulates our amusements, has decreed for some years past, that when at Easter time we direct our steps to the Fair du Trône, our little excursion is quite “the correct thing.” The faubourgs and suburbs no longer enjoy the monopoly of the fun collected at the foot of the two columns, the caps of the swells from Vincennes, and the hair-nets of the Cytherean bataillon from Montreuil-sous-Bois are no longer the sole head-dresses visible. The Gingerbread Fair has its reserved days like the Opera and the Comédie, and on Tuesdays and Fridays the largest profits [p038] are made. Really, if you strolled in that direction about five o’clock on one of these select afternoons, you would be surprised to see the long line of carriages standing in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard Voltaire. For every three cabs, in which a party of students are enjoying themselves in somewhat noisy fashion with their little companions, you will find one gentleman’s carriage with servants in livery, or, at least, a hired victoria occupied by women in over-smart dresses, who are making their annual excursion to the fair, accompanied by the “mashers” of the year. It is curious to watch these society people when they visit this populous district which they have never seen except through the windows of mourning carriages on the road to Père la Chaise, or on the eve of a capital execution, lighted by the windows of the small taverns in a cruel bustle of festivity. Secretly, they feel a little uneasy. The too demonstrative enjoyment, the cries, shouts and songs, the incessant rattle from the rifle saloons, the explosion of fireworks, the pushing crowd struggling round the stages of the various booths, from which the showman harangues the crowd, recall, in spite of themselves, memories of civil war and the barricades, and produce a gentle shiver—that shiver which steals down the spine in front of a wild beast cage, if the thought occurs to one that the iron bars might give way, and the lion in his fury be free to rush upon the spectators . . . . . . But in itself, this secret, indefinable misgiving is rather pleasant, and it is certain that this semi-dread forms half the pleasure which many pretty women feel in venturing amongst the crowd and exposing themselves to a somewhat rough hustling from the people.
However, when we emerge from the shadows of the [p039] boulevard and faubourg into the brilliantly lighted square, timid hearts regain courage, and we at once catch the infection of the gaiety surrounding us. Every one is come for amusement and intends to get it. We see all the [p040] monstrosities, all the beautiful Circassians, consult all the somnambulists, and visit all the booths, make excursions in the switchback railway and take the traditional turn on the roundabouts, filling up the intervals by breaking pipes, slaughtering marionettes with balls, and throwing the hammer at the Turk’s head. And then the late drive back to dinner in the cool evening air, the slow recovery from the effects of so much laughter as we roll towards the Boulevards, with paper roses in our button-holes, the carriage filled with gingerbread from Rheims, comic figures, symbolic animals, and effigies of Saint Remo with mitre and crosier, which resemble primitive bas-reliefs in old oak torn from the stalls of a church choir.
I also make an annual visit to the Gingerbread fair, but not as a lounger who follows wherever the crowd leads him. I am accompanied to the Champ du Trône by the best of guides, one of the most brilliant correspondents of the Voyageur forain to which I referred just now—M. Philippe, the editor of the Tir de la Republique.
M. Philippe was formerly a sailor; and has retained from his sojourn on the men-of-war the naval cut of his beard, and the cap which he wore during the expedition which he made to the North, when he saluted the Pole in the neighbourhood of the Behring Sea. This retired sailor is a very intelligent man, of a stamp which only flourishes in the atmosphere of Paris; a gunsmith by profession, the vicissitudes of existence and a taste for adventure have made him, as a last expedient, a showman’s journalist.